A recent news report in Mid-Day tabloid published from Mumbai has exposed a scam involving 55 illegal buildings that have come up in Virar, part of MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region).
The initial scam was estimated at around 3500 Crores as it involved 55 buildings. The modus operandi of the scam was that the perpetrators created an entire chain of bogus documents starting with land records and ending with building permissions. Using these fake documents the scammers even got the building registered with the Real Estate Regulatory body, MahaRERA and obtained registration numbers. Apartments in these buildings were then sold, banks merrily gave loans on these purchases and the buyers even got the central subsidy on cheaper homes through the PM Scheme that operates for such housing.
The lid on the scam got blown when one apartment was sold to two people and they both went for paying the stamp duty and get the property registered in their own names.
Police investigations have revealed that 55 buildings built by the same set of builders had all forged documents created using fake official seals.
Municipal Corporation of the area, VVCMC, started to investigate the scam and found that it did not stop at 55 buildings but now 300 buildings were involved. If the average cost is taken at 63 Crores, the scam is now worth almost 19,000 Crores.
Activists have been pointing out these illegal buildings and have filed court cases against VVCMC but to no avail. According to some activists, the number of such illegal buildings is more than 1600!
If this is not a systemic failure, then one fails to understand what will qualify for that term?
It is impossible that this large scale illegal construction happened without the active connivance of authorities at all levels within the system, including VVCMC, the land record office, police, local politicians, etc.
Now, VVCMC is planning to demolish these buildings. The big question is why should the buyers suffer because of the failure of the system? The scammers have been arrested and put in jail but the officials that allowed all of this to happen and failed to sniff out the scam are all roaming free. Are they not responsible for this massive scam that has left the lower middle class (the target for such apartments) in the lurch?
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